


What Lies Beneath

by Starofwinter



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Body Horror, Creature Fic, Gen, Horror, Original Character Death(s), Sort Of, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 03:33:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starofwinter/pseuds/Starofwinter
Summary: Deep in the lower levels of Coruscant, the beings that wandered too far have been trapped for years.  They've evolved into something Other.  Be careful not to join them.





	What Lies Beneath

There’s a lot of space in Coruscant’s lower levels - the ones low enough that no light ever reaches, no electricity works anymore, there’s no  _ air _ \- but no one lives there.  No one even ventures that far down.  No one but the truly desperate anyway.  

No one but a clone, desperate to escape the war he’s been thrust into, terrified of what his future holds if he stays, hiding himself away until he can slip back out to sneak aboard a transport going… well, anywhere but here.  

The darkness doesn’t scare him, and neither does the sticky wet chill that seeps through his civvies.  He was on maintenance more often than not back on Kamino, and this is no different than the lower levels, close to the ocean.  Though here, instead of the smell of saltwater and rust, it’s stale air and a sickly, cloying smell of something rotting. 

He pulls his civvie jacket closer, clutches his blaster grip, and steels his nerves.  This is the way to freedom. He just has to get through it. It’ll be worth it, he tells himself.  Once he’s far from the Republic and the war, this will just be a bad memory, like so many others. He just as to keep going.

So he does.  One foot, in front of the other, carefully feeling the way because he can barely see more than the most vague shapes ahead of him in the dingy pool of light cast by his glowrod.  He can hear sounds, things moving, but surely there’s nothing else down here. He doesn’t see any other light, and there’s no way anyone would be down here without light. Right?

* * *

 

He’s lost.  He has to be wandering in circles, and he can hear nothing but his heartbeat pounding in his ears.  He’s so disoriented, with nothing but pitch black surrounding him and those soft moaned whispers echoing around him in a space that feels far larger than he originally thought.  

He’s trying desperately not to think about the fact that he could die down here, forever lost in the darkness, alone.  He’s hyperventilating, his chest tight and his hand reaching out into the darkness to feel for  _ anything _ to guide him.  There’s nothing but cold, stale air, and he nearly sobs.

He  _ does _ whimper in relief when he steps in a pool of water, and the sound of it echoes too.  It’s  _ something _ to orient himself, even if it isn’t much.

A soft inhale just off his left side makes him jump, and he spins with his blaster up and powering on.  The light of his dying glowrod illuminates shapes moving in the darkness, shuffling towards him with hands outstretched.

Part of him suddenly feels very far away, watching it all from a distance.  That part of him realizes they might have been humanoids, once. There, the tall arching montrals of a togruta, short bumps on another that were probably lekku once, one with nothing at all.  It looks human, if humans had no eyes or skin - or maybe they do have skin, but it’s so pale he can see through it to the veins and muscle beneath. They’re making noises that almost sound like speech, but not anything he’s ever heard, not Basic or Ryl, or anything else.  

He backs away, his hands shaking as he clutches the blaster - that hasn’t happened to him since his first sims, but this is so far beyond anything he’s ever known - and his ears ring with his own panted breaths and his pounding heart.  

He jerks back as something grabs him with a clawed hand, nails digging through his jacket with ease and sinking into the soft flesh beneath.  He manages to pull the trigger, but shot goes wide as he’s yanked back into the waiting embraces of the creatures.

When his throat finally loosens enough to let him make a sound, he  _ screams _ . It’s cut off into a gurgled moan as fangs pierce his skin, and his heart - beating triple time in terror - forces the venom through his body.  

In his mind, he’s still screaming, even as the paralyzing venom takes effect and his voice goes silent and his breathing hitches and slows; he can only watch in wide-eyed terror as the creatures surround him, reaching out to tear him apart, their pale skin turning red with his own blood and viscera before his eyes.

He never stops screaming.


End file.
